Thorgalaeg
Deity
It is fun as in movies/games ships always arrive to solar systems in the ecliptic plane. A reflection of our 2-D mind proper of terrestrial mammals.
What determines their orientations is the direction of the angular momentum that the system had when it formed, and that's pretty much random.
No, that would be the case only if Earth's axis was perpendicular to ecliptic plane too.You only have to look at the sky at night to know we are totally off the plane of the galaxy. If we were on it, you couldnt see almost nothing of the milky way in Canada since it would be under the horizon or barely over it.
EDIT: wait, is that correct?![]()
I forgot to mention that it also depends on your latitude. From equator, you'd still be able to see it near zenith.OK, just checked it, Earth tilt angle is 23 degrees. So we would see the milky way 23º above the horizon at most, not near the zenit as we see it sometimes (63+23 = 86º)
Yes, but we were in Canada with warpus.I forgot to mention that it also depends on your latitude. From equator, you'd still be able to see it near zenith.
You only have to look at the sky at night to know we are totally off the plane of the galaxy. If we were on it, you couldnt see almost nothing of the milky way in Canada since it would be under the horizon or barely over it.
EDIT: wait, is that correct?![]()
But apparently they aren't that related when it comes to the orbit of a star about the galaxy and how its ecliptic is inclined relative to its orbit about the galaxy which is what I thought Warpus was asking about. But yeah, within solar systems these things are related and usually tightly coupled.But afaik orbit, ecliptic plane and planet rotation are related and usually close. With some exception as Uranus.
Just found formal definition of ecliptic plane out of curiosity - it's actually not quite the same as the Solar system plane! Didn't know this.It's the difference between how Earth's equator is inclined relative to the ecliptic versus how it's orbit is inclined to the ecliptic. The former is ~23degrees, the latter is close to zero.
Yeah basically I wanted to know if it would be reasonable that ships approaching solar systems in our galaxy would be usually approaching "from the side" or it would be pretty much random in terms of the direction you could expect travellers to come from. Ignoring fuel concerns
That all makes sense, thanks!
Might there be a benefit to approaching solar systems "from the side" in an effort to use the gravitational pull of the outer planets to get closer to the inner planets? I suppose that's probably situation specific